Here in Houston we have a real estate investing club called Lifestyles Unlimited. The founder, Del Walmsley, and the vice president, Steve Davis, host radio shows on two AM Talk Radio stations. I had heard the show Steve does on AM700 but only a couple of times because the show is in the afternoon and I work. Only when I leave early, take lunch really late, or have to go to a meeting at our corporate office did I ever get to hear the show. But the shows I did hear, I remembered.
I guess the shows resonated with me because of my experiences with my grandfather growing up. He always owned some sort of rental property and if my grandfather could own rental property, then I should be able to own rental property too, right? So one day my daughter and I were talking about her future and what career she might want to pursue. She has always loved real estate and I remembered about the radio show. We looked up Lifestyles Unlimited on the internet and I couldn’t let it go. They were having a free workshop that weekend, so Brent and I decided to go.
Low and behold, we signed up for their Financial Freedom Program ($500) which is their lowest level program. It gives us the ability to call any time with any question about real estate investing and a mentor will help us. We also get to attend vendor meeting/networking events, vendor presentation nights, and other networking events. Lastly, and probably most importantly, it gave us a two-day training seminar with Del that is offered monthly and can be taken over and over if we so choose.
So that Saturday morning Brent and I paid our money and signed up for the next ‘two-day’ which was the first Sat/Sun in May. Then we went back to living our lives.
Each month on the Thursday night prior to the seminar, Lifestyles holds a case-study night. The night is filled with presentations from people who have purchased property. These people get up in front of a crowd of people and show slides of their property and analyze the numbers showing how the property makes them money. It just so happened that our daughter was in town for the case-study night (she’s in college and lives in San Marcos, TX), and since guests are welcome, she came along.
It was our first case-study and we were all amazed at how many people were in attendance. Lifestyles serves beer, wine, and snacks, and tons of people just come to network and see the deals that are being presented. I’d say there were about 300 people there. It was very exciting and our daughter got excited as well.
The Lifestyles membership includes all family members up to 18 years old and allows those over 18 to join for half price. Brittany was so excited that we went ahead and signed her up, that way she could attend the two-day seminar with us on the upcoming Sat/Sun since she was in town anyway.
The next day was Friday and the day before the two-day. Brittany and I were cleaning out her room getting ready for a garage sale we had planned for the first weekend in June and the phone rang. It was the real estate agent with whom I had my grandfather’s house listed. We had an offer on his house! It was very exciting because this piece of property is in East Texas on the Hwy 30 service road on an acre of land and it had been on the market for about 8 months with very little showings and no offers. The offer was only a few thousand less than our asking price, I couldn’t have been happier. He sent me the offer, I signed, and we were on our way to selling the last asset my grandfather owned. I was almost finished executing his estate ~ YAY!!
That night it dawned on me that sometimes things just fall into place. Brent and I joined Lifestyles on blind faith that some how we would be able to make real estate investing work for us. Then, the day before we were scheduled to attend the training seminar, my grandfather’s house sells, the very sale that would give us the capital we need to get started investing.
Do you think maybe my grandfather was trying to tell me something from above? Hmm….
Until next time…
Reba